The Secret of Crickley Hall

by James Herbert

  ‘You can stay down here if you want, but I’m gonna find her bedroom.’ Seraphina stepped towards him, splashing through a puddle as she did so. ‘Gimme the bag,’ she demanded, reaching out for it.

  Quentin swung it behind his back, keeping it away from her. ‘Don’t think you should go up there.’

  She huffed irritably, a white mist rolling from her mouth and quickly dissolving. ‘Give it me,’ she whispered fiercely.

  ‘Okay, but I’m not staying.’ He handed over the bin-liner and Seraphina was surprised at its weight. Dead rats were heavy. She wrinkled her sore nose at the stink that came from the bag. Was it stronger than before?

  ‘You wait for me,’ she ordered her brother.

  ‘No way. I’m pissing off. You’re welcome to the place.’

  Quentin made as if to walk towards the kitchen door, but his sister put the flat of her hand against his chest.

  ‘I mean it, you fucking spazzo,’ she said, her mouth shaping into a snarl. ‘You just fucking wait – What was that?’

  Quentin gawped at her. ‘What was what?’

  ‘There was a noise.’

  ‘Didn’t hear it.’

  They looked around, both silent, listening hard.

  Seraphina jumped. ‘There it was again.’

  ‘Think I heard it that time,’ whispered Quentin, his eyes bulging in alarm.

  ‘Where’d it come from?’

  ‘Dunno. Up there, I think.’ He lifted his chin, indicating the stairway.

  They remained motionless for a full minute. But there were no other sounds.

  Seraphina finally let go of a breath that briefly clouded. ‘Probably just the house,’ she remarked in a murmur.

  ‘Or ghosts.’ Despite his fright, Quentin leered at her.

  ‘Shut up, Quenty.’

  ‘You shut up.’

  Seraphina made up her mind. ‘I’m gonna find her bedroom. You coming or not?’

  ‘Not.’

  Carrying the bin-liner in one hand, fingers wrapped tightly round the top to confine the smell, Seraphina strode purposefully towards the broad oak staircase. She muttered something to herself when she trod in another puddle. When she was at the first stair, her foot lifting to take it, the sound came again.

  She immediately became still, her foot poised. It had been a kind of swishing noise that ended loudly.

  Swish-thwack!

  It was coming from upstairs.

  As she craned her neck to see, a shape moved in the darkness of a doorway. It must have been the door to a windowless room, because it was completely black beyond the threshold. No, not completely black: the shape was blacker and it was still moving.

  It was the next swish-thwack! that galvanized her. She hurried away from the stairs, not bothering to avoid the little pools of water but treading as softly as she could.

  ‘Quick,’ she hissed to her dumbstruck brother. ‘Someone’s coming!’

  ‘Let’s get out,’ he whispered back, at least appreciating the need to speak quietly.

  ‘No time. Look, in there.’ Seraphina was pointing at the open door she had noticed earlier. It was the nearest exit to them, somewhere to hide. She just hoped the person upstairs hadn’t seen them yet.

  She pushed her brother towards the opening, both of them treading carefully even though in haste. The sound from the landing above was getting louder.

  Swish-thwack!

  Every few seconds now.

  They scuttled through the gap, as quietly as possible, Seraphina tight behind Quentin as though they were playing spoons. By the light that stretched across the hall from the tall window, they could see a stairway leading down to a basement area. Quentin had to descend two steps so that his sister could squeeze in after him.

  Swish-thwack!

  Almost one sound.

  Footsteps now. Soft footsteps that made the boards of the stairs under the window creak.

  Seraphina pulled the door they hid behind closed; mercifully the hinges did not squeak. She was very careful not to make a noise when the door shut completely. They were in darkness. When their eyes adjusted, they could only make out a line of light from beneath the door. They waited, trying to control their panicky breaths in case they were overheard.

  A pungent, musty, dank smell and a soft rushing sound came from below. Seraphina soon realized its source. Her mother had also told her of the well in Crickley Hall’s cellar; it dropped to the underground river that eventually joined the Bay River before reaching the sea. Mum and Megan never went down there, not even out of curiosity. Neither of them liked the idea, but couldn’t say why exactly.

  Cold draughts came up the cellar steps to chill the girl and her brother even more. Seraphina felt Quentin shivering next to her as they crouched in the darkness and she became aware that she was shivering too. And it wasn’t because of the cold.

  ‘Can you hear it any more?’ Quentin whispered close to her ear.

  She thought she could, but the background sound of rushing water and the closed door itself muted it.

  Swish-thwack!

  Distant.

  And then there was a noise behind them. They turned their heads and stared into the pitch-black below, straining their eyes to see and their ears to listen.

  It was faint. At first. But it grew slightly louder. A shuffling. Like a shoe scraping stone, underneath the noise of the underground river but audible nevertheless.

  ‘Oh fuck, there’s someone down there!’ Quentin blurted out, his voice shrill, but still a whisper. A very frightened whisper.

  ‘Can’t be,’ Seraphina hissed back. She had caught Quentin’s fear. ‘The house is supposed to be empty. You saw them leave. We rang the bell and knocked on the door. No one came. There can’t be anyone at home.’ She was rambling, trying to calm herself with her own logic.

  Swish-thwack!

  That sounded louder, as if someone were coming down the hall’s stairway.

  But again, that thud-scraping noise from the cellar behind them.

  Quentin was scrabbling around for something in the dark; his elbow kept prodding her. He was looking for something in his anorak pockets.

  The boy bit his lower lip. It wasn’t in the right-hand pocket. It had to be in the left. A gasp of relief as his shaky fingers closed around the mini-torch he always kept in his anorak. The mornings were growing gloomier as winter approached and he carried the little plastic torch with him on the egg round so that he wouldn’t trip over anything in the dark. He brought the torch out now, but his sister caught his attention by swearing under her breath.

  ‘What?’ he demanded, keeping his voice low.

  ‘There’s water coming in,’ she replied.

  Seraphina had been kneeling on the top step, her ear pressed against the door. But she had jerked away when water from the hall oozed under it like slick oil. It had soaked the knees of her blue joggers and was beginning to trickle down the stairs. She stood, careful not to lose her balance and topple backwards. Quentin startled her by switching on the torch.

  Its beam was poor, the batteries weak, but a circle of light appeared on the door they hid behind. He lowered the angle so the light went to the bottom of the door.

  They saw a broad stream of water seeping through the gap at the bottom, spreading and slowly flowing over onto the first step. The water crept forward until it overflowed onto the second step.

  Swish-thwack!

  Louder than before, but still muffled by the constant flow of the underground river.

  Thud. Followed by the scraping.

  That came from downstairs, from the pitch-black cellar.

  His hand trembling wildly, Quentin turned the torch so that its limited beam shone down the steps. They heard the thud again. Followed by the scraping on stone, like something being dragged. A leg perhaps, the first sound a heavy footstep.

  They barely noticed that the water from outside had reached the third step and was beginning to flow like spring water.

  Although the torchli
ght was feeble, Seraphina and Quentin could make out a small area of the cellar. Something was coming into view.

  ‘Seph!’ Quentin screeched when he saw what that something was. Most of it was in shadow, but the sight was enough to loosen his bladder so that pee ran down his leg and joined the stream of water that was now flowing like a brook over stones.

  Seraphina also screeched at the umbrageous form that stood near the foot of the steps. The shadows emphasized its undefined horror rather than concealed it.

  Almost hysterical, Seraphina pushed open the door so hard that it swung wide, the handle smashing into the wall behind. Despite her terror, she halted in the doorway and Quentin, scrambling to get out behind her, gawped over her shoulder.

  The hall was flooded as if all the small puddles had expanded into one great lake. The water was shallow, but it completely covered the flagstones. The bigger shock, though, was the figure standing at the turn of the stairs, blinding light shining through the window at its back so that the front was in shade. But not so shaded that Seraphina and Quentin could not see it was a naked man.

  The man was skinny and sunlight behind created a halo effect with his white hair. But the image kept fluctuating, fading in and out so that it had no substance. One moment it looked solid, the next it was transparent and they could see the stairs and circular torchère through it. He held something in his right hand – a stick, a long stick of some kind – and as the sister and brother watched, the man raised it high over his head, then brought it down so swiftly it became a blur. The cane smacked against his own thigh, its end splaying over the flesh.

  Swish-thwack!

  Again, almost one sound.

  Now Seraphina and Quentin shrieked in terror.

  Hand in hand they ran, splashing through the water as they went, their shrieks filling the great hall and echoing off its thick walls.

  37: GHOST

  The plan had been to get Loren to a doctor first thing, have her checked out and, if there was nothing physically wrong with her (she seemed fine this morning, if a little tired – but then with four in a bed again, none of them got a good night’s sleep) and her pain last night was not a portent or symptom of serious illness (growing pains couldn’t be that violent), they would drop her off in time for school; he would return to Crickley Hall with Eve and Cally, then take himself off to Ilfracombe and get on with the job for which he was being paid. That was the plan. It didn’t work out that way, though.

  At the health centre, despite the Caleighs’ early arrival, all three doctors had eight o’clock appointments. In fact, they had scheduled surgeries running right through the morning to midday. As Loren appeared to be perfectly fine, the clinic’s receptionist said she would try to fit their daughter in between legitimate appointments. As it happened, there was a ten-thirty cancellation and Eve and Loren were ushered in to see a doctor while Gabe kept an eye on Cally in the waiting room.

  According to Eve later, the congenial doctor, a handsome, short-bearded, middle-aged man who treated Loren with easygoing respect, had carried out a thorough examination of their daughter, prodding her tummy and other places with gentle fingers, pressing hard, though, into the muscles of her legs because she had told him that was where it hurt last night. He listened to her heartbeat and lungs and enquired about her health in general; he also asked if she suffered from depression or if she was hyperactive at all. Did she have mood swings (what girl approaching her ‘teens’ didn’t?) and was she menstruating yet? He asked a score of other questions at the end of which he announced that he could find nothing wrong with Loren, although from the slight pouches under her eyes she looked as if she could do with a good night’s sleep. But if Eve wanted, he could send Loren to hospital for further and more extensive tests. Seeing her daughter’s negative expression, Eve had declined.

  Sometimes, the doctor had gone on to explain, and contradictory to what Gabe had said the previous night, troubled sleepers could have such vivid dreams of punishment that they honestly felt they were experiencing the pain. There certainly were no marks on Loren’s legs, no weals, no bruises, not even any redness, so it could only have been a severely traumatic dream experience. Should such dreams continue, then he knew an excellent child psychiatrist to whom he could refer Loren.

  Eve told him they would keep it in mind if it happened again.

  They left the centre just before 11 a.m. and Gabe rang Seapower’s Ilfracombe office on his cell phone (which worked fine in Merrybridge) to let his colleagues know he would be in later. Loren was left at school after Eve had had a word with Horkins, the headteacher. From there the three of them returned to Crickley Hall, where Gabe intended to drop off Eve and Cally before going on to work.

  But when they got back to the house, they found a police patrol car in the parking area close to the bridge.

  The uniformed policeman was waiting on Crickley Hall’s doorsteps, the front door open wide behind him.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Caleigh?’ the officer said as they approached.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Gabe asked, a worried frown creasing his forehead.

  ‘You are Mr Caleigh?’

  Gabe nodded. ‘This is my wife, Eve.’

  The policeman took out a small notebook from his breast pocket and flipped it open. ‘Your full name, sir.’

  ‘Gabriel Caleigh.’

  ‘Gabriel?’

  ‘Gabriel.’

  The policeman scribbled in his book.

  ‘D’you mind telling us why you’re here?’ Gabe asked.

  ‘There were more of us earlier,’ the policeman responded, stepping off the doorsteps. ‘I’m PC Kenrick. I was left to wait for you, sir. Can you tell me what time you left the house this morning?’

  ‘What’s this about?’

  Eve glanced at Gabe, concern drawing her features.

  ‘If you would just answer the question.’ The policeman was eye to eye with Gabe.

  ‘About seven thirty, perhaps a bit later,’ Eve said quickly. ‘We took our daughter to the health centre in Merrybridge.’

  ‘This little girl?’ PC Kenrick indicated Cally, who sidled up behind her mother’s legs at the attention. She peeked out at the policeman.

  ‘No, our other daughter, Loren,’ replied Eve. ‘We dropped her off at school on the way back.’

  ‘And this is the first time you’ve returned?’ He directed the question at Gabe again.

  ‘Uh-huh. We left the centre about eleven. Took Loren to Merrybridge Middle School and came straight back here.’

  ‘Who else occupies the house apart from yourselves?’

  Gabe was perplexed. ‘No one else, just us. Look, can you tell us what this is all about? And how did you open the front door?’

  The officer had decided to consult his notebook at that moment. ‘Uh, yes, sir. Sorry. The outer kitchen door was already open when we arrived, although we also had its key. We unlocked the front door from the inside.’

  ‘Who’s we and how did you get the key to the kitchen?’

  ‘My sergeant and two other officers. We obtained the key from someone who’d already been inside the house. That was the, uh, complainant.’

  ‘The complainant? Who the hell is that?’

  ‘If you’ll let me ask the questions, sir.’

  ‘Well, what’s the complaint?’

  ‘Better that you let me ask the questions for now, sir.’ There was no West Country in the PC’s voice. ‘I will inform you as to what this concerns in due course.’

  Gabe looked at Eve, then shrugged resignedly.‘Go ahead,’ he said to the policeman.

  Although PC Kenrick was watching him closely, it was an indifferent stare. He must be all of twelve years old, thought Gabe. Okay, maybe in his early twenties. Young and keen, polite but breakable. Stay cool, Gabe advised himself; Kenrick was only doing his job, but his guardedness was a little irritating.

  ‘Were you alone in your house some time this morning, Mr Caleigh?’ the policeman asked.

  ‘It isn’t my h
ouse. We’re only renting the place for a while.’

  ‘Yes, we were informed of that.’

  ‘Informed by who?’ questioned Eve.

  ‘The victims’ mother. The mother is actually the complainant.’

  ‘Victims’ mother?’ Gabe was becoming more intrigued by the minute.

  ‘She and another lady are Crickley Hall’s regular cleaners. Now, if we can continue with the questions?’

  ‘The answer is no, I haven’t been on my own in the house this morning. I told you – we took our other daughter to see a doctor.’ He couldn’t tell if the policeman was satisfied or not.

  ‘You’re saying the place was empty after you left at around seven thirty? No one else has been staying with you, a relative, or a friend?’

  Gabe shook his head. ‘No one.’

  Kenrick considered this for a moment. He said: ‘Does anyone else have a key to the property, anyone other than yourselves?’

  ‘The realtor—’ Gabe caught the policeman’s frown. ‘Sorry, the estate agent would obviously have a set. I guess the cleaners must have a set too.’

  ‘They only have the kitchen-door key. Which is how the victims gained entry. The girl stole her mother’s key, the mother being one of the cleaners.’

  ‘I don’t get this “victims” thing.’

  Eve butted in. ‘Officer, it’s time you told us what this is all about. If there have been trespassers in the house, then it would seem we’re the victims.’

  ‘I was coming to that, Mrs. Caleigh.’ PC Kenrick slipped his notebook into the breast pocket of his uniform jacket. ‘Earlier this morning while, it appears, you were out, two children – well, the boy is a youth, thirteen or fourteen years of age – say that a man exposed himself to them inside Crickley Hall.’

  Eyebrows raised in astonishment, Gabe and Eve looked at one another again. Gabe turned back to Kenrick.

  ‘Say what?’ he said incredulously.

  ‘A naked man came down the hall stairs and frightened them. They said he was carrying a thin stick that he beat himself with.’

  The same thought whirled around inside both Gabe and Eve’s head. The punishment cane. It couldn’t be: Gabe had stashed it away in a kitchen cupboard along with the book and the photograph. But what man could have got into Crickley Hall? Eve’s face paled.